Mary Aldred (Monash, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It might be a new year, but Australians are still lumped with the same hardships inflicted upon them by this government as they were last year. As families in my electorate of Monash sent their kids back to school last week, on top of the school supplies and new uniforms, they continued to get slugged with the cost of economic mismanagement by this government. Inflation is a homegrown problem, as the former governor of the Reserve Bank Philip Lowe has said. It's a homegrown problem because, as he noted as well as many others, government spending continues to grow.

As the MPI says, the government's reckless spending is now at the highest levels in 40 years outside of a recession. This is a primary driver of inflation, and the Treasurer's continued revenue ram-raids are driving this—so much so it's known as 'Jimflation'. 'Jimflation' is an invisible tax on the financial security of every Australian. Australians work bloody hard for the tax that they contribute, and this government's got complete disregard for those efforts. Australians deserve to know that their hard earned taxes are going to be spent in the most effective and efficient way possible. This government disrespects the tax that they work hard to pay. Australians deserve better than a government that continues to channel Paul Keating's 'you've never had it better' every time our economy goes backwards, every time we see someone struggling to get ahead.

Today we've seen the 13th interest rate rise under this government, and it's important to note that the minutes provided by the RBA today have left the door open for further rises. Meanwhile the Treasurer, again, tells us the budget is in better nick. He refuses to see that government spending is making inflation worse. Now, here are just a couple of examples, which Judith Sloan put forward in the Australian earlier. According to MYEFO, real government spending will increase by 4.5 per cent this financial year. It grew 5½ per cent last financial year. Government payments, as a percentage of GDP, are close to 27 per cent—another record outside of COVID and several years in the early 1980s. The Treasurer cannot continue to hide behind these figures, because government spending is driving inflation.

Just today, the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman released a report on the health and wellbeing of Australian small businesses. He says:

The December 2025 quarter marked the end of another demanding year for—

Australian—

small and family businesses that saw rising input costs, squeezed margins—

and—

new regulatory demands …

I note that the government continues to fail on its word to reduce red tape. Small businesses have never worked harder for less and faced more risk and red tape than under this government. And it's not just small businesses; it's households too who are at the coalface of this government's inflation crisis, which went up to 3.8 per cent in December last year. This is at the worst possible time for families, heading into a Christmas and into the new year. When the coalition was last in government, inflation averaged just 2.1 per cent—nearly half the four per cent Australians are seeing under Labor.

Everywhere I go across my electorate of Monash, people are telling me that they're struggling to pay their bills. Community groups are telling me they're struggling to keep their heads above water. Insurance has gone up. Energy has gone up. Rent has gone up. We have a prime minister that loves to wave his Medicare card around, telling us that's all you need to see a GP, when in reality health has gone up 18 per cent. Education is up 17 per cent. When I was at a listening post recently, I had a lady come out of the supermarket holding two bags of groceries, saying, 'Mary, I cannot get my groceries—these two bags of groceries—for under a hundred dollars.'

People are struggling. They deserve a government that cares, they deserve a treasurer that is going to be real with them about the economy and they deserve a prime minister that will face up to the challenges that we have instead of continuing to mislead them.

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